Sandra Kay Yow

Kay YowWayne Sutton from Raleigh, USA; cropped and brightened by UserB, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons“We have little or no control over what happens to us in life, but we have 100% control over how we will respond” (Kay Yow, Zonars) What does this quote mean? What does it mean to you? To Coach Yow it meant dealing with things as they come and knowing that through the grace of God she could get through anything. In Coach Yow’s life, many obstacles were thrown at her, but her quiet confidence in God’s plan and her steadfast commitment to her players never slowed her down.

Born on March 14, 1942 in Gibsonville, North Carolina, Kay Yow grew up with her two sisters and one brother, learning the feel of the basketball court and the game itself. When she was young, she played basketball in her backyard and then went on to play all four years at her high school. Coach Yow loved basketball and soon realized that God’s plan for her was to teach and inspire young women by mentoring them while coaching them in basketball. She stopped being active in basketball until after college when she was looking for a teaching job at Alan Jay High School. The principal knew she played basketball and told her that he would give her a job if she took the girls' basketball team. After teaching at Alan Jay High School, Yow moved back to Gibsonville High, and then on to University of North Carolina State where she broke many records. Coach Yow faced many obstacles in trying to build the Wolfpack program because at that time, Title IV did not exist. Coach Yow’s life ended after a rough battle with stage-four breast cancer on January 24. While fighting this disease, she became the fifth woman to get into the Naismith Hall of Fame, the sixth top woman coach in winnings (winning seven hundred thirty-seven games), and winning four ACC championships. One of Coach Yow’s memorable accomplishments was having the opportunity of coaching the US Women’s Olympic Basketball team, with the great Tennessee coach Pat Summit. She attributed all her success to her players and the belief that God made all things happen for a reason.

Even when Coach Yow was going through the harsh reality of chemotherapy, she stayed on her road to success and with the help of God stayed positive. Some people would sulk around and be mad at God and ask “Why me?” if they heard the diagnosis of breast cancer, but Coach Yow didn’t; she focused on the positive and moved on. She once told us, “We have little or no control over what happens to us in life, but we have 100% control over how we will respond” (Zonars). The way Coach Yow responded was to take what was given to her, knowing that God had a reason, and making something good out of it. That something good was making a foundation called the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund that helped with the funds for the research of women’s cancer. Not only by gaining money for the research, the foundation also inspired other college teams to join the effort. They started to wear pink jerseys at some of their games, and handed out pink shirts to their fans to wear at the game in honor of the foundation. The foundation has been a big success and will continue to go on in the honor of Coach Yow. She believed that God put her on this planet for a purpose and never gave up.

WBCA Pink Zone at Penn State gamePenn State - Flickr [Public domain]

Coach Yow will be remembered by her players not only for her perseverance through cancer but also for the comment to her team and the lessons that they all learned. Her team was not only her team; they made up her family and once they were in it, they always were hers. Coach Yow always emphasized “that her relationships with players and ex-players are what she is most proud of. ‘If you evaluate yourself as a coach just on wins and losses, it makes everything superficial. There’s a much deeper side to life'” (Lum). Her relationships indeed were more than a coach-to-player relationship, and through the book Leader of the Pack, ex-players wrote about their time with her. Many of her players told about the times when she purposely taught them a lesson that affected them on the court and off the court. One of those lessons was, “Don’t wallow in self-pity, you’ll drown. Just swish your feet and get out!” (Zanders). This lesson was told to many that doubted themselves when they were having a bad day, and when a tragedy happened in their life. When asked in an interview about Coach Yow in 2007, a senior center named Gillian Goring told us what most people would say about how Coach Yow’s example would affect them in the future. She said, "‘You will go through a lot of stuff in life that will try to pull you down, but you raise up and shake it off. She lived by what she always told us, and I will try to do the same” (Anderson). Many people would agree with Goring because Coach Yow never missed a game when she was going through chemotherapy.

Coach Yow is a hero because she has inspired others to follow their heart, she thought of others even when she went through her own problems, and through God she has looked on the bright side of things. She will be remembered for her fight with cancer and for her perseverance through her life. But for the most part she will be remembered for her outlook on life, which followed biblical principles.